I’ve heard this story months ago.
But I still cannot forget it.
I’m also haunted by this nightmare.
In the giant surgery room of the world
Sick children are lying next to each other,
Italians, Germans, Hungarians, French, English.
And these little innocent ones shout chaotic:
‘The Germans are coming! The Italians are coming,
The French are coming, the Hungarians are coming,
The English are coming.”
Humanity is unhappy.
In the old times we were afraid only of beasts,
The monsters and goblins of our fairy tale books.
They embody this horror already in one Nation.
We played ‘Nationalities’ only as a joke,
In our empty hours.
They continue this game even in their sleep,
Even when their own blood is shed. (?)
War lives on in their nerve system.

Tell me, shouldn’t you, poets,
All the poets of the world,
All the good-willed people of the world unite,
Write educational books, respectable, smart,
Angelic books,
So that through them our children
would learn to love humans and life,
And learn to hate darkness and death,
To clear up fear and terror from their souls,
That is the cause of all evil,
To make them hold hands,
And make them make piece, as their parents
Already made peace more or less?
We were in deep thoughts in silence
in the darkening room.